The plan will guide development in a proactive manner by identifying policies and implementation strategies to ensure sustainable growth of the downtown as a high quality, liveable, transit-oriented regional town centre.

The plan will:

Review land use/zoning policies

Research innovative ways to provide public open space

Foster adaptive reuse of heritage resources

Identify options to mitigate the noise, air quality and connectivity issues relating to the regional goods movement corridor.

Encourage public transit use in the more densely populated core

Protecting open space and natural areas by focusing growth within existing urban areas

The Draft Framework for the Downtown Sustainability Action Plan (a sub-component of the Downtown Community Plan) at this time is scheduled to go to Council on June 1. Based on this schedule, it will be publicly available with the weekly Council package on May 29 on the city’s website.

Eric confirmed that there will be further public consultation meetings on the overall Downtown Community Plan coming up soon, however dates are TBD. If you’re interested to know when they will be, leave a comment on this post. At these meetings, there will be an opportunity for citizens to provide feedback on various sustainability issues, including one of New West’s big hot buttons: transportation.

Councillor Jaimie McEvoy chairs New Westminster’s Environment Advisory Committee, which operates on a one-year term and meets every two months. If you’d like to sit in on a meeting of this committee, the next one is June 10 at 6:30pm at City Hall (either Committee Room 2 or Council Chamber).

4 Replies to “Sustainable development plan coming for downtown”

As a citizen of downtown New West, I would like less wedding stores and more non-wedding stores. I understand that having a “bridal district” makes it more of a shopping attraction, however there are few stores in the downtown (besides restaurants) that really serve the downtown community on a day to day basis. Just a thought.

Yes – there's got to be an alternative to a Bridezilla-dedicated strip! I'm fine with the bridal stores, but I'd love to see more resident-oriented services, more like the mix on Commercial Drive (boutiques mixed with butcher shops and artisan bakeries and coffee shops/restaurants).

Do you really think that what we have is sustainable ?
Thing are getting older, like infrastructures and people, density is increasing while we're running out of money.

I would say we're headed for the brick wall in another 20 years, the GVRD is to big to be sustained even with all the underutilized ALR lands.

Or do they mean 'financially' sustainable ? How much stuff do you have to sell (or tax) in order to pay off the cost of building this or fixing that ? How many cups of coffee a day ? How many loafs of bread ? How many dresses ? Sustainable economics ?